Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - FBI Informant Reveals How Snitches Make MILLIONS

Episode Date: June 7, 2026

Ben Freedland, a former high-level trafficker, reveals how a near-death experience pushed him to leave the criminal world behind, become an FBI informant, and build a new life helping take down the very networks he once served, while exposing how top informants can earn life-changing money along the way.⁣ ⁣ Ben's links - ⁣ https://www.linkedin.com/in/human-intellegence-ledger/⁣ https://www.instagram.com/human_intelligence_ledger/⁣ https://www.facebook.com/HumanIntelligenceLedger/⁣ https://thehumanintelligenceledger.substack.com/⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Shop my merch: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MatthewCoxCollection⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ Chapters: ⁣ 0:00 - The Coconut King⁣ 6:20 - Trusted In The Underworld⁣ 10:06 - Choosing A New Path⁣ 15:24 - Professional Informant Life⁣ 21:40 - Working Different Cases⁣ 28:37 - Flying Undercover⁣ 41:40 - FBI Meeting Begins⁣ 49:49 - Sentencing And Prison⁣ 56:52 - Leaving Protective Custody⁣ 1:01:17 - Life After Release⁣ 1:03:35 - Teaching Law Enforcement⁣ 1:07:09 - Fighting A Growing Crisis⁣ 1:10:14 - Current Work Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. I worked as a professional informant for different agencies across the country. There's a million dollars. You can negotiate how much you're going to get. People do make millions of dollars as informants. I was the coconut king. I served coconut cocktails to thirsty festival goers around the country at large music festivals

from Coachella to Bonaroo, Lollapalooza, all of the big events I did from 2009 to 2013. I had a lot of cash. I met a lot of interesting people in the music festival world, and I eventually had a request from one of them to find something in California that is prevalent in California, that grows green,

and is needed on the East Coast, and I told them I could find it. I just said I was from California. I had no idea what it was doing. I just went out to Humboldt County, California, with a big bag full of cash, you could get that for probably $1,200 a pound in California in 2009 and sell the same pound for $27 to $3,200 on the East Coast.

So I started off with five. I sourced it. I brought it across on a greyhound. I had no idea what I was doing. And then I needed more. So I did 10. And then I did 15. And, you know, I eventually blossomed into a relationship.

You're still bringing this on a greyhound? No, I stopped. No, I stopped on the greyhound. I eventually sort of became a very, very good at finding ways to traffic the narcotics that I was bringing across. And so I always did it a different way. I took it on the train. I hit it in the bathroom compartments underneath the urinals in the Amtraks. I put it in moving and shipping containers eventually.

I took it across on private planes sometimes. Circuitously, I would take it halfway across the country. Most of the time at the end, when I was doing large loads, because I went from five pounds to the fact that I was actually bringing 100 or 200 pounds at a time, and I was bringing it to Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia specifically, and I was putting it in shipping containers. And so I eventually graduated from kind of like a small-time dealer to a high-level drug trafficker.

That's sort of the beginning of the end for me was when I started to be more prolific with the drug trafficking. Did you get up being the Coconut King? No, I didn't. And I never did. And I'm still doing it to this day. Oh, okay. I have a music festival in two weeks in Illinois. It's called Summer Camp Music Festival.

But I continued the front because that was the perfect cover. I was going around the country. I didn't have a responsibility with a job. So my cover was the Coconut King. I was going to music festivals and I was bringing in all this cash. And that was what I was telling my friends and family. But the reality was that's not all I was doing. I was also bringing large-scale narcotics across the country from California to Pennsylvania.

and there was a lot of learning that I needed to do along the way because I did grow up privilege and I didn't know how to be a drug trafficker. So I had to learn to be feared and ruthless and meticulous with how I interacted with the criminal element that was my customer. I remember a time that led to me being a trusted member of the criminal. society, which is what got me into the world of crime as intensely as I did. And I'm going backwards a little bit. But when I first started trafficking, I was really only doing it in small quantities. I was doing five pounds, 10 pounds, very small stuff. And I had someone come to me

and they were needing a large quantity of narcotics. I got it for them. I met their friend of a friend, long story short, is that friend ripped me off, and I ended up taking it out on the person who introduced me to those people. It turned into basically a week-long binge of intimidation and violence against that person until they sent the drug trafficking organization that I did not know was affiliated with me at the time, sent someone out to come and take care of me and I intercepted that person and I beat the crap out of him

with a sprinkler iron what are those things that like there's like a sprinkler like it's a long rod and you like you turn it at the top and turn the water on and off yeah like a long wrench almost yeah it's like a long wrench

and you it's like a key yeah it's like a sprinkler's a yeah it's like a sprinkler I picked one of those things up and I just beat the crap out of this guy and he pulled up in a Mercedes to come like intercept me somehow, but I was waiting with him. I was waiting for him with a friend and I beat him up real bad, hospitalized him,

just completely destroyed his car and was trying to get anything I could, but I was just being retributive at that point and vindictive. But I got a phone call the next day from the leader of the drug trafficking organization. That was his car. He, I destroyed his car. And I, you know, I embarrassed his enforcer. And he was supposed to take care of. me, but he was in the hospital now and his car was destroyed. So he wanted to meet me. And I flew out to

Philadelphia and met him at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia. And I became his top distributor and supplier. What was this guy? This guy was the head of the organization. The Tyron McFadden Drug Trafficking Organization. That's just a fancy name that they give it. But it's just the leader of the organization and they put DTO against it, drug trafficking organization. That's when I became a trusted member of the criminal world on that day when I met him at the Ritzkarlton, Philadelphia, when I met Tyron and I told him, you know, what it was that I could provide him. He wanted a large quantity of narcotics, and I brought that to the table. And we established a very, very good rapport after that. I only met him a few times, but we always talked on different phones,

burner phones. He always had a different name. I always had a different name. It was only me and him that talked to one another. I didn't talk to any of his associates. And, you know, I was in. I was a trusted enforcer of whatever it was that he wanted me to do. And I established that. And so when I began to cooperate and I was able to pass long information by being around those people who came out to spend time with me, I was able to just sort of maintain

the type of relationship that I had. previously. So when I was passing along information, it was undetected for years. Where are you getting the, you know, the grass from? Well, I would get it from Humboldt County, California. Is it like a grow operation? Well, yeah, there's different, there's different. Yeah, well, no, I never worked with the cartels. I sort of peripherally worked with them once when I got some of the stuff that was coming out of Mexico because there was a need for that.

There was a need for high quality grass, and there was a need for low quality. The low quality comes in these huge bundles. I remember one time I got this huge bundle. It was like 50 pounds, and it was like this compressed thing. Like, I don't even know how to explain it, but I opened it up accidentally, and it, like, exploded all over the floor of this sober living home that I was living in. And there was like 50 pounds of Mexican grass all over the ground, and I got kicked out of the sober living. Because I couldn't pick it all up. It was like everywhere.

I just left that night. But I was sourcing it from the Emerald Triangle in California, and I was bringing it across the country in all different means, plane, train, automobile across to Philadelphia, where it was distributed. Where I would get it, I would always make at least $1,000 a pound. And so when I was bringing 100 pounds, I'd make $100,000. And I'd probably do that 10 times in the year. And I did that for three years.

Between 2009 and 2013, I just turned into a ruthless criminal. And I, sometimes if I lost a load, I would just go find one to take and make the other person lose it. I didn't care. I had no moral compass. I just didn't care at all. And so, you know, there was instances where I committed acts of violence and there was incidents that I, had acts of violence committed against me. Really, one of the catalysts that made me stop was when I was robbed.

I was taking the train across the country. I don't remember how much it was, 30 or 50 pounds, and I got off the train. Someone was to pick me up. And that person who was to pick me up sent someone else, and that someone else put me in the back of the car and put a gun in my face and took everything I had and dropped me off in a field,

in Croton Harmon, New York in 2013. I think it was the end of 2012, actually. And that was the day I stopped. That was the day I knew I was no longer wanting to be a part of that world. I was already having some indications that I didn't want to be a part of it, but that was the catalyst. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. And that's the day I started to cooperate.

So how does that happen? Cooperation? Yeah. Well, it's not easy. Because how does like what was your thought process and how did you know how to go about doing that? Well, that's a, I don't know really how to answer that directly, but I'll do it the best I can. I think what happens is, you know, when people know that they want to cooperate, they have a reason why they're doing it. They want to, you know, get someone in trouble.

Their family, you know, is involved in some way or another or they're just done. For me, I was just done. I looked down the barrel of a gun that I was going to die. I probably should be dead, but I didn't die, and I wanted retribution. And I was done with the lifestyle. So, you know, it took me a long time to think about it in my head, not long in the terms of many days or weeks. I thought about it for about a day or two, and I eventually remembered that I saw a flyer at the post office with reward amounts or different types of crimes that were committed through the Postal Service, one of them being narcotics trafficking.

And I thought to myself, you know what? Maybe I'm going to reach out to these people. And I think it's time for me to start making a legacy for myself outside of crime. Okay, so when I first began cooperating, I had no idea what that meant. So I started talking to people on the phone. at first it was the Postal Inspector Service, and then I was arranged a meeting at a post office right outside of Los Angeles International Airport. I got there, and I pulled into the back of the post office, and there was a door with no handles on it, and I was calling them. I'm like,

what the heck is going on here? Like, where are we supposed to meet? And they just opened the door, and it was some like surreptitious door, and there's an office in there. And it's like people working at desks and, you know, I sat down with a detective from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department narcotics team and a postal inspector, and we started going over what information I had. What do I have? What do you know? Well, I have extensively trafficked narcotics across the country. I know that these guys use the postal service. I know that there's TSA agents in San Diego. I know that there's TSA agents in Los Angeles that are utilized where the drug conspiracy that I was working with, or the trafficking network, was utilizing these people. What they didn't have was a source that was consistent.

So when they finally came to me in a manner that was yet another story, which I'll get back to in a second, they liked me because I was always consistent. and so what this all led to was a plethora of information that I could provide to the investigative team. I was identified as someone that could provide intelligence to the investigators that was meaningful. And they put me to the test. They needed a specific way that I could funnel information to them. And that's when I started to work with them to devise a plan that, eventually found a postal worker in Philadelphia. And once they knew that I could provide something like that, I mean, that's a pretty

serious federal case that they could put together. They were like, all right, this guy, he knows what he's doing. Let's continue working with him. And it just continued on. You know, I became sort of, I lived a double life. I lived the life of cooperator and I lived the life as a criminal because I was continuing on as a drug trafficker. People came out from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

I was living with them in a house in Los Angeles, feeding the feds information, taking them to the bank, finding small tidbits of information like a receipt so I could pass along an account number or a teller's window that we passed cash along to. We would just spend the entire day doing mostly nothing. And, you know, 1% of the time I was able to pass along information. I'd have to take a walk around the way. my house and using a burner phone calling my handler. It was very difficult time and it was hard for me to maintain any kind of civility with

family or friends because I was living this double life. So how do you know, like when did they come to you and tell you that you, they were already investigating you? After I provided the information about the postal worker. So they were like, all right, this guy knows what he's doing. and when they confronted me I saw my friend on the other side of the street I was heading to school with the kids

I let go of mom's hand to wave I had already forgotten their lunches I ran over to hug her she came out of nowhere and then it stopped sometimes the moments that never happen matter most

Volvo's automatic emergency braking helps ensure a safe ending for everyone learn more at VolvoCars.com about the fact that I had exposure on the case was only after I provided that. I thought, you know what, I'm going to do this. I'm just going to kick rocks and live my life. But unfortunately, I had pretty massive exposure. They had been watching me for several years.

And that's the beginning of my cooperation against the specific entity of the drug trafficking organization that I mentioned. Are they paying you? They were not paying me yet. They only gave me promise of cooperation and a reduction in my sentence. Eventually, after I was done working with the FBI and the United States Attorney's Office, who was developing that case against that drug trafficking organization, I did get paid as a contractor with other agencies.

I was vetted properly, and I worked as a... professional informant for different agencies across the country. And I provided information that led to federal cases, and I did that extensively. To what, I mean, you're saying you worked as a professional informant, but doesn't that mean you would have to infiltrate additional drug organizations? Yeah, it is. So what happened is after I was really done working in Philadelphia, I went out to San Francisco. I worked with the ATF, and I was basically told.

that they needed drugs and what the heck what do i do so i just made a cover story i went out to the streets of san francisco i met people in the tenderline which is a really impoverished neighborhood drug ridden and i just started finding leads walking around looking like a bum and finding guns and that's what i did for several months what do you do when you find h and guns like you would you'd make a buy and then go tell your handler or do you have to wire up and then you'll make the bot like how does that yeah yeah so uh the the way that i really started in san francisco was they didn't give me any direction so i went out into the streets and i befriended a prostitute and i did not seek out sex from her i just wanted i told her i

wanted to massage so i went into this like horrible motel in san francisco on the tenderline i got a massage from this prostitute, and I told her I just got out of prison, and that I just got a check from the state prison system, and it was $250 or whatever the amount was, and I wanted to buy some H. Where can I get it? And she's like, I know the perfect person. Let me take you to him. And that's what she took me to him. And then when I told him that I needed more, he gave me more. So I told the handlers that I could buy the H at a certain location with this person and this description, and then I would wire up and do a just a buy, not a buy bust. I would just do the buy.

They'd put on a Dickie's shirt with a button up. The wire would be in the buttons. And then I would just go do the buy. Real easy. Here's the money. Here's the drugs. Boom. And then I would be tailed by a whole group of different,

what they usually do is they pull together in the feds. They take ATF officers or agents and HSI and all the different agencies that work in the federal building to give them exposure and they do the bus that way. It's not a bus. It was just a buy. That was just one example. I mean, there were bus. There were buy bus.

But, you know, I would go back. I would give them the narcotics and they would give me a check or they would debrief me. And, you know, that was how it went for a long time. And I did that pretty extensively. I built these cases that were large enough to bring the attention of the federal authorities. They gave me certain minimums for was five grams to pick up a federal case. I had a pretty extensive knowledge of what they wanted, and I got what they needed, and I developed those cases. But what are they paying you for that?

They paid me per bust. They paid me per gun. They paid me. I mean, is it $50? No. Like, is it an average one $1,500? And I think 2013, I think I, I think I, made like 50 or $60,000 as a contractor.

Over the course of just a whole year, doing a little here, a little there. Yeah. Because this isn't a full-time gig, right? No, it was, it was a full-time gig. And if you're working 40 hours a week and you're making 60,000. I was working 100 hours a week. I mean, it was a full-time thing.

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I was also making other money. I was making money at the music festivals and I was doing well for myself. I was living in four and five-star hotels. I had a place in San Francisco.

I was living on a boat in Hermosa Beach, California. I lived a good lifestyle. I was able to make ends meet. So you did this for a while for the ATF? Then, I mean, who else? I worked with the Redonda Beach

Police Department. I worked with the San Mateo, California Narcotics Task Force. I worked with... What did you do for... Like, what did you do for those organizations?

I did the same thing. I provided them information. They deemed the information credible. They wanted me to do a buy bust. They wanted me to purchase a gun or they wanted me to help them find meth. And I did that. I brought that to the table for them.

I helped them find... I helped the United States Marshal Service Fugitive Task Force to find a fugitive. I did extensive operations in different agencies. I remember when I was locked up, I read an article that was in, I want to say it was in like Don Diva. You know what Don Diva is?

Don Diva is a black magazine that. Oh, maybe. Where they talk about everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They talk about, you know, rappers. They talk about just drug organizations, you know, like the cartels. They'll talk about rival, different gangs that are having issues. And then, of course, they also just write articles about different busts and stuff.

So there was an article about this chick that was a professional informant, and her boyfriend had gotten busted, right? Black girl in college had never been busted, had no felonies, anything. She did have a gold tooth right here, right? And they said it which she had a gold tooth, they said, but spoke perfect English. They said, but she could also speak like street. You would think she was raised in the projects, spoke street, just very, and just looked like, you know, a chick straight out of the project. So she had been dating this guy and he got busted. He probably had a crew.

He goes to trial and loses. So he loses. He goes to trial. That's it. He's got 25 years or something. He's in federal prison. She goes to, so now suddenly he's wanting to be, now all of a sudden he's wanting to cooperate, but they won't, you can't cooperate. You just went to trial.

It's been over a year and a half. You don't know anything to tell us at this point. And they didn't want to cooperate with him. It's like you've been locked up and you made us take you to trial. We don't want to give you anything. So then he, so she goes to the DEA or agent or whoever and says, listen, I'm willing to cooperate. Like he's locked up. He can't do really anything for you, but I can.

Third party cooperation. Right. So they tell her they're like, look, I get it. You want to help him as your boyfriend. But he's done. We're not giving him anything. Like he fought them tooth and nail, right? They're not helping him at all.

Like he'd have to tell him where, you know, a terrorist cell is or something. You know, it'd be, there just doesn't have the ability to give him anything that they want. They want him to do 25 years. So, or 30, whatever it was. It was a lot of time. Like it was a lot of time where like she ain't waiting. So she said she's like, okay, but the agent says, but wait a minute, you can still cooperate. Like if you know anything, you can give us the information.

She's like, well, what does that do for me? And they're like, we'll pay you. Yeah. And I want to say they were paying her like a thousand bucks or $1,500 or whatever. And she didn't do it often. But what, and she didn't do it in the area where she was. She was going to college. So they would start some kind of a.

organization or some kind of a task force or whatever across the country and they'd say we need someone to come in here yep and get these guys yeah and and hem them up so they would take her they'd fly her out and this is what they said this in the article they see you have to understand what this chick looked like she was every black drug dealer's fantasy they she's gorgeous right she's beautiful big ass beautiful black chick oh with the gold right like super like sexy you know hold it off, right? You don't see a picture of her or anything, but they describe it. The guy who's writing the article is like, listen, this chick, these guys are going to sell to her and trust her just because they want to fuck her. Like, that's it. Like, a normal person walks up if they're

kind of like, I don't know about this chick, but this chick that looked so good, they were like, you know, they just, their hormones took over. So she would drive through a neighborhood and she'd buy something or she'd walk in the neighborhood. She'd buy from the guys that they knew were a part the organization. And they would, they're not even looking into her. They're not, I haven't seen you around here. Nothing. They don't even do that because they're so enamored by her.

Yeah. So she makes a couple buys. Next thing you know, she's hooking up with these guys, kind of, you know, getting close to them. And then, and they would fly her back and forth. Before you know it, maybe she's dating a guy or he wants to date her. She's now going to the parties. All the guys think she's amazing.

She makes a couple of buys. She's wired up. She builds a case on a few of them. And then these guys, then the, the, the DEA swoops in and grabs fucking five or ten guys that she's got eight busts on, you know, or whatever, eight buys. And then the, the amount of the buys were bigger and bigger because she would be able to say, like, listen, I need more than this. Like, I got friend. I want to sell. And they'd be like, yeah, I got you.

I got you. What do you need? You're just like that. Like, you don't even know this chick. She's made two buys from you, and now she's getting a quarter key or half a pound just because you think she's hot. And so she would get these guys all hemmed up. And then she would make whatever three, four thousand. It wasn't a ton, three, four thousand dollars a month.

But they're flying her in, putting in her a hotel. She's doing it over the weekend or doing it between classes. Yeah. And she did this for years, years. I remember the guys were passing around that magazine, walking around, just shaking. just shaking their heads, just like, I can't believe it. I can't, but this is a thing. I'm like, that's a job.

That's a job. She's going to school full-time and doing this. But she was also making, she was making good money. This was 20 years ago. He'd make it $50,000 a year probably, 20, well, well, what is that? What's $4,000 a month? But whatever, so let's say 50. You know, that's 20 years ago.

You know, there's people that make a lot of money as professional informants. It sounds to me like that girl, she, She didn't really like look into doing that the way that I did it. Yeah. It just fell into her lap. She's going to college. You know, she kind of got roped into it, right? But she also realized right away like, I got to go away for the weekend, two weekends a month and maybe two or three days here and there throughout the month.

I can still go to college full time. These guys are like none of her friends are making $50,000 a year, you know, working 10 hours, 15 hours a week. a week. So it's like a part-time job to her. I remember, though, you mentioned something about being flown out. I was flown out. I flew to San Francisco.

I flew to Philadelphia, all on the dime of the federal government. Yeah, of course, they're paying for that. It was really funny. One time I got flown out to Philadelphia, and I had no idea what was happening because I didn't, I wasn't really cooperating with the FBI yet.

They flew me out to Philadelphia, and they put me at this hotel. It was the Omni Hotel. And on that date that they flew me out, that the governor of Pennsylvania was staying at the same hotel, but they put me in a bigger room. It was a suite, it was huge.

It was like floor to ceiling windows, and I was smoking a joint in there, and just like nothing, like nobody's business. Under the dime of the FBI, I just didn't care. I didn't give a shit, and I had no idea, you know,

how deep I was. But they do fly. You know, I flew all over the country. I read another article. The only article I ever read where the guy was making a ton of money doing this was he was busting like terrorist cells. And so he was a Muslim guy that was working, and he was working like in Europe, but he's working with the FBI. And he's infiltrating these cells. And it's funny too because this was, I think this article was like in the New Yorker.

It was like it was a serious, serious. I feel like I remember this article. This guy was making ridiculous. I'm not talking about making 100,000 a year. No, he's making millions. Yeah, he's making, yeah, exactly. He's making like half a million, a million. And he's negotiating the whole time.

Well, that's the part of it is, so when you become an informant on that level, the money is there if there are high stakes involved, right? With terrorism or whatever, large, you know, high value targets. But the money is also there if money is found. So when you have access to a large cache of cash money, if there's a million dollars, you can negotiate how much of that that you're going to get with the law enforcement element that you're working with because they don't know where it is until you tell them. And then you're going to get a portion of it.

And that's where you can make serious money. So people do make millions of dollars as informants. So if they find $100,000, you can get 10%. Yeah, hey, I got $100,000. I know where it is. It's in the wall of this condo over here and this place. And wouldn't just setting up the bus in and of itself saying, hey, I've got these guys, they're going to show up with $100,000 to buy 10 keys, but they're going to have $100,000. I want a piece of the $100,000.

Like, you guys are paying me $1,000 a week. Like, come on, man. If there's cash, then it can be negotiated. Yeah. But if you're buying and they show up with the keys, you don't get a key. They don't give you like, hey, oh, by the way, here's your key. Thank you. No.

No, it doesn't work like that. Would they give you the equivalent of what the key would be? I don't know. No. You know, these are going for 10 apiece. When I was working around that, those keys were going for, I think it was around 15,000 at the border, but they were going for 25 or 30 in New York. I mean, everything's more expensive on the East Coast, and that's where I spent the majority of my time. Everything comes from the Mexico or the West Coast, and it goes to the East Coast, and it's more expensive.

Well, a key in, let's say, you know, Colombia is, you know, $3,000. Right. A key in Mexico City is now $4,000 or $5,000. A key on the border is eight. Once it's in the United States, it's, you know, 12 or 14. You know what I'm saying? It's like, and then to get it across the country into New York,

well, it's the travel, you know what I'm saying? The key, like, oh, these things are going for $20. Yeah, that, in an exception, it was a couple grand. That's what's so expensive is getting it here. That product is cheap. You know, they're growing it. Like, it's, it's, it's not, it's not like it's, uh, um, extremely difficult to, to grow, you know, poppies or, or coca or anything.

It's the traveling, getting it here. Like the, the difference between being on one side of the border and the other is four or five, six thousand dollars, you know, that's, that's expensive. It's expensive to move it because that's where you get busted. And then in the United States, practically living in a police state, you know, you know, these, these fucking, these troopers are, they, they'll look at five cars and be like, that one's got shit in it right there.

It's got 500, at least four or 500 pounds. They're like, how do you even know that? All the way the car is sitting, it's too low or it's this, it's that. Plus, it's an out-of-state tag. It's going down this interstate. It's this. I can see that guy. He didn't look right.

It's amazing how they'll pull somebody over and you're just like, how did you pull me over? Well, you just didn't look right. How did I not look right? Well, there's all, yeah, they have all sorts of methods of intelligence that they're working with. I got pulled over in Kansas. one time early on in my trafficking career. I had 15 pounds in the back on a guitar case. We were driving across the country from San Francisco. I had really no idea what I was doing, but I rented a car in California. We drove it to Colorado. We picked up another car in Colorado

with Arizona plates on it, which is like the worst car with plates on it that you could take across the country with narcotics in. It's Arizona. It's on the border. What the hell was I thinking? I didn't know. I had the tags for Arizona have permanent registration on them. We got pulled over in Kansas with these Arizona plates because they didn't see registration on the plates, but they found probable cause

to go inside because the people that I was with were smoking, and they were very stupid about that. But we got busted in Kansas with all of that weight, and they confiscated it, and we never, they confiscated it. They literally took it, and they lost the evidence.

The Kansas State Troopers did. and the Topeka Division. We got, and we ended up with, you know, we had 15 pounds, but five days after we entered the jail, we were released with misdemeanor charges and no-show bail and persona non grata in the state of Kansas for a long time. Maybe still, probably not. But they could not find the 15 pounds that they confiscated from us. They took it. Yeah, I was going to say, what do you think happened? Like an officer took it.

Yeah, they stole it. Yeah. I remember the last time I saw it. No law enforcement officer would do that. That's not sure. Yeah, right. I remember, yeah. I remember looking at the, the guitar case.

When they got it, when they took us out of the car and I was like, shit. I looked at my buddy and I was like, we're going to prison. We're screwed. And they go over to the guitar case. They open it up. I was like, fuck. You know, they're looking at all these packaged, you know, vacuum seal bags of the product that we were bringing it across

and they handcuffed all of us and then they took the guitar case and they put it in the back of a police cruiser and I remember watching him leave and that was the last I ever saw it. There was 15 pounds in there. How the heck did I get

no-show probation and a misdemeanor possession charge? It's pretty crazy. There's a lot of corruption in law enforcement, obviously. We know this, but... You know, before the body cams. I, because when I first got locked up, they didn't have the body cams.

And there were, I heard this from multiple people that would get pulled over by law enforcement or busted in some way and they would go to them and they'd have the, they'd have like the money. Like we got a pound of this and we got $30,000. Now they're going to, they're going to convert the $30,000 into weight, right? So that's going to be two additional pounds. So you'll have been caught with three pounds of H or whatever. Yeah, they do that. Or powder or whatever.

And they're like, and that's a mandatory minimum of 15 years, let's say. I don't know what it is, but let's say 10 years. Let's say 10 years, 10 years in the state of Georgia. And the guy would be sitting there handcuffed like, fuck. There's no body cam. And I've heard this from multiple guys. And they go, they'd be like, fuck. They go, now listen, here's what I can do.

I can turn in the one pound. and I can turn in $5,000, and I'll take the extra, I forget how much it was, $20, $25, whatever. I'll take the extra $20,000 in cash, and I'm going to bring in five and this. You'll get five years. But I'm not going to do that. If you're going to start screaming, there's $20,000 missing,

what do you want me to do? I'll turn it all in. You'll get your minimum mandatory of 15, or you can get five. I have to turn something in. I already pulled you over, and we need to make this decision quickly. Other vehicles are coming.

And they'd be like, take the fucking money. Take the money. I'll say nothing. And they'd take the fucking money. And they'd turn it out. Hey, I got them with $5,000 in a key. And they'd be like, oh, man, you're fucked, bro. You're fucked.

You're fucked. Man, you're fucking. Bro. And they'd say nothing. But this, I've heard this story from in multiple prisons from multiple people who have said, oh, no, this is common. Like, I got caught with $18,000. The cops took 12 of it.

I'm like, really? Why did they turn? Well, I don't know why they turned it in. But the cop actually told me, look, I'm going to take this, but don't say anything. because otherwise you're going to get this much time. He's like, oh, he was right. I was thrilled. Take it.

Take it. I was just like, fuck. Listen, because when I got locked up, I thought, please don't do that. That doesn't happen. I don't think it happens now nearly as much because of the body cams. Yeah, there's a prevalence of body cams everywhere. Yeah, there's cameras everywhere. Right.

So they're not in a position to do that now. But I think, and, you know, I also don't think that they thought it was a big deal. They're walking away with a little extra cash. And I don't think they were doing it. It's corruption, but I don't think they were thinking it was a horrible thing to do. You know, it is, obviously it's corruption, but I'm kind of on the fence. Is that a horrible thing to do? Well, actually, you know, if you're investigating your...

Supplementing your income? Well, I mean, you have to be really careful. A lot of the guys that are doing that are going to get caught. Well, even if this guy, this smuggler gets back to the police and tells the cops, or tells his lawyer, happen, man. Even the lawyer's going to be like, listen, man, that's your word against a decorated officer. And it's just your word. And you just got caught with a pound of fucking powder and $5,000. Nobody's going to believe you. I worked with a cop that eventually got

busted. And I think he's still on the payroll in San Francisco. His name is Antonio Landy. He was my handler with the San Francisco Police Department Violent Reduction Team. And I looked him up after I got out and he ended up being part of some conspiracy where he was having sex with some prostitute. Then they were all having sex with her. They all got busted, but they, like, none of them lost their jobs and they're just doing office jobs. Corruption is real. It's relevant, you know, like, you know, but in the world of narcotics, when you have, you have to sort of like play both sides. It's a very gray area between, you know, legality and illegality. So if you want to be relevant in the world of narcotics, you have to do some stuff that establishes, you know, a reputation or rapport with the criminal.

Right. I did have a close call as an informant. There was a guy that the United States Marshal Service was seeking because he was a fugitive. His name was Larry Daniel Reed. I can talk extensively about him because he was murdered in 2017. Look it up. he was in a car with me and I stupidly put on my phone the contact that was looking for him. It was deputy marshal so-and-so.

And I went into a bank to exchange some foreign currency that I had just robbed someone. And they had a bunch of foreign currencies. I went into the bank to exchange it. And I came out and Danny Boy was. gone. And I looked at my phone and it was open to Deputy Marshall so-and-so. And I was like, fuck. My cover's blown. I left Los Angeles after that. I was no longer welcome back there. So what did the guy find it or did the deputy call you? Well, the deputy called me while I was in the bank and he saw it come up on my phone. I was like, fuck. And I was done. I couldn't be in Los Angeles

anymore. I was working prolifically as an informant at that point, but I was gone. I couldn't be couldn't be seen. And so that's when I went to Philadelphia. I just had to leave town. And I wasn't going to come back. That's why I went to Minnesota. I wasn't going to come back because of Danny Boy. He was a very high-level guy as a gang member in Los Angeles, and he was murdered. So how to get murdered. He was trying to rob someone, and he walked up to them. I think he was trying to carjack them, and he got shot in the stomach. He bled out in the parking lot, Harbor City, California. Like, you eventually get in trouble with this case and go to prison.

Yeah, well, so I had exposure. When I, they flew me out to Philadelphia, and I sat down at a conference table with the postal inspector, and he brought in a special guest. It was a special agent Jeffrey Hunter from the FBI. He was a former narcotics, no, he was a former homicide detective from the Chicago Police Department. And he had a very ominous look. I was under investigation and he knew that he had me cornered.

You had been under investigation when you came in. I was still under investigation. But yeah, I mean, I had been under investigation. I was under investigation. I was continuously under investigation. But I started to cooperate at that meeting. I did so extensively over the course of several years. And the end of the story is that.

Well, what did he say? Well, not the end of the story. What did he say when he walks in? Jeffrey Hunter? Well, I was with the guy who I had been working with, with the Postal Inspector Service, and I was, I was very, I was at very at peace with him. I didn't know who this Jeffrey Hunter was.

I had no idea who this guy was. And he seemed like a real asshole. He had a tick. It was like weird. And he seemed sort of nerdy, and he was trying to, like, relate to me. He had no idea how to build rapport with me. He was like a total schmuck.

And he still works for the FBI now. And I hope he hears this. I think the feeling was reciprocal between me and the people that were working with him. He was just this schmuck, but he had so much dirt on me. And I didn't work with him directly. I worked with the other guy because I had a better relationship with him. I cooperated extensively against the organization that I was with, and eventually this led to a prison sentence.

I had exposure. What did the FBI guy say? What did he say to me? He just wanted to know who I knew. He wanted to know. about some, he showed me pictures. He said, do you know this guy? Yes, of course I know him.

He's the, he's the guy that, you know, goes to the bank for Tyrant. Do you know this, do you know this person? Of course I know this person. He's, you know, he's the guy that hangs out at Tyron's house. Do you know, you know, all these pictures, he showed me pictures of homes. He showed me pictures of cars. He wanted to know if I knew these people. He was testing me to see what it was that was, that, was, that,

I brought value to the case. So he's asking for your cooperation on his case, because you're not the only person on that case. Yeah, he was asking for cooperation, but I was already willing to cooperate. I just didn't know that I had exposure at that point. Okay. I didn't know. I had no idea, but I did.

I had exposure to an armed robbery in North Hollywood where I set up the robbery of a drug dealer in North Hollywood behind a Walgreens on Lancashon Boulevard. I set up a robbery. I think it was 15 pounds, maybe it was 20 pounds. The guys came down from Humboldt County. They met us in the parking lot behind a Walgreens in an alley. I brought cash, and we were counting out the cash. I was in the front seat of the car.

There was a guy in the back. There was a guy in the front. There was 15 or 20 pounds in the trunk, and I had a couple of people run up with guns and robbed the guys that I was buying the drugs from. And they kept a little bit of cash. They kept a little bit of dope. and they slashed the tires and took all our phones,

but I was complicit. I arranged the whole thing. And I had exposure on that. We initially did not have, I did not initially have exposure on that case. I didn't think anything of it, but that was actually, that was actually one of their biggest pieces against me.

It was a 924C, which is a, you know, possession of a firearm and furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, aiding and abetting, which is seven years consecutive to any other thing, that they have. But they had me with drugs, too. So they had the gun and the drugs, so they had a

federal case against me. That was something that he told me he knew about, and so I was cornered, so I felt compelled to continue to cooperate. I just didn't know that it was as extensive of an exposure that I had when I first started to begin to make my headway with cooperation that I did. So it was many years until they wrapped up. the case, they were going to start making arrests. I was given a target letter, but I knew it was coming in advance. I just didn't know how much time I would be getting.

I knew that I had secured an, what is it called again? 5K1. Yeah, 5K1. It's not guaranteed, but I was working directly with the assistant United States attorney, who's now a district judge in Pennsylvania, Karen Marston, Trump appointed. I knew that the time would come where I would eventually have to surrender. Did they raid Tyron and get him and all the guys?

Like did that, I'm assuming they didn't get target letters. No, I'm assuming they pulled up at their house and got arrested. Yeah, actually, so I believe the way that it went down was that they got a lot of the guys in the conspiracy in Pennsylvania all at once. and then Tyron fled to California, so they arrested him out there, and they eventually brought him back to the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center. And I was there right around the same time that they brought him, but I had surrendered before. We all had separations. Tyron, is that an Eastern European name? He called himself Kevin.

Really? But no, he was this short, black guy that had a very strong reputation in thin Western Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, they don't have gangs per se, unless it's a Hispanic king like the Latin Kings. The blacks have neighborhoods. So you're either from West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, and he was from West Philadelphia, and he had whole blocks in the East Coast, like in towns like New York City and Philadelphia or Baltimore, they have blocks, literally like street blocks

that they control. And each block has a narcotic that is specialized. You've got one block that has H. You've got one block that has pills. He got one boss that has grass, and he had like six or seven blocks. And they were all throughout Western Philadelphia, and he was a force to be wrecking with. Chad Marks was, remember? Chad Marks?

Yeah, he was talking about, like, he's like, they had this block and this guy, they had this block, and they had a house here, and, you know, he was explaining. They did, man. They had it all set up. Everyone that lived on that block was a part of the system. They were lookouts, or they were kids that were, whatever. There was a stash over here. The gun was over here.

Or they're too scared to say anything. Yeah, of course. But they don't say any. Those neighborhoods, it's just part of the culture. There's no telling. I mean, it's just not even a thing. It's very interesting. You know, I infiltrated that society, and it was a very strange dynamic because I knew that.

You know, no one would say anything. I would walk in there to one of Tyron's blocks, and I was like a king, or I was a guest of the king. Right. And nobody fucked with me. and I was just, you know, no one knew who I was, but I mean, if I was with him, then it was not a problem. You go into these dangerous neighborhoods and you would otherwise be targeted, but I was not. So at some point, do they actually come and arrest you or they allow you to just show up and take a plea and then they release you?

At a certain point, I did retain counsel. Todd Henry in Philadelphia, he had a penthouse office on a 12th. 27th floor of some, you know, gilded building in downtown Philadelphia. And I retained him. And we started talking with the assistant United States attorney. The United States Attorney's Office, we started just, you know, building together a plea and putting it together. And I accepted responsibility.

I agreed to the guilty plea. But with the understanding that there would be a 5K1. A 5K1. That's no way. It was still not guaranteed. I actually ended up going, I surrendered, and then they careered me with the PSI, with the pre-sentence investigation report. They determined that I was a career criminal, and I did not know that.

So it was supposed to be originally like 40 or 60 months, but then they took me up to 257 to 327 months. I just remember seeing that and saying, holy shit, that's a lot of time. That's almost 30 years. I think it was like 24 years or something that I was looking at. Right. And they dropped that designation, thankfully. I was a level four offender. I think I had like a 24 or 26 offense level.

So I was looking at between 12 and 13 years when I was sentenced, I got 84 months. I got seven years. I would remember that day I had my family behind me. I had my sister, my dad, my uncle, my cousin. they were all there, and I got sentenced after I had surrendered, and the judge threw the book at me. She gave me 84 months, and I eventually started doing my time. Where did they send you? Were you able to turn yourself in?

I did turn myself in. I turned myself in at the federal detention center of Philadelphia. No, I meant once you were sentenced, were you able to. turn yourself in? No, I turned myself, I turned myself in pre-trial. Right. They took you into custody. They took me into custody.

I was already in the negotiation process. Like, I had already started the preliminary hearings, and I eventually got to the point where the sentencing occurred. So I was already in custody. I was actually a marshal's inmate, and so they sent me to a contract facility, which was terrible. I, you know, there's contract facilities like geo and community education centers. It's like, it's horrible.

horrible, horrible places. So when I got sentenced, I had exposure in another case that I was working extensively as an informer. I provided actionable information that led to a grand jury testimony. I have to be careful about this because I eventually became a protected government witness. And I'm not really allowed to talk more about. What that means, you can Google it. That's what I'm allowed to say.

So I entered into the prison system, and they designated me to a specialized, undisclosed location within the Bureau of Prisons. And that's where I started my time after the detention center. Okay. What is, yeah, I'm curious. What does that mean, like this prison that you went to? Are you having issues with being an informant? No, I started off my time. at the federal detention center as, you know, a cooperator.

And, you know, there are many other cooperators, like 50 or 60 percent of the population, you know, and the people that are not cooperating are kind of jealous and envious of the fact that other people had the opportunity to do it. I also was part of a much more high-profile case that I cannot discuss. It was more high-profile than the drug trafficking case that I was exposed to. It had nothing to do with my exposure. in my criminality.

I was able to provide information to the government that was very helpful to a major case, and I was sponsored into a program that was for high-level protected government witnesses. It's a protective custody unit within the Federal Bureau of Prisons. There are other agencies that are involved. You're kind of like the one that Gene Barrero went. to in New York, right? Like they have a certain area where they put these guys

that are cooperating that, to make sure that they're okay. Once you, when you enter into the type of facility that I'm talking about, you don't have,

your name no longer exists. You're, you're an initial. And we had a guy in Coleman who was a, I forget, what are they, it was a,

he was a Zeta. for the cartel. Was it Egert, was it La Barbie? No, no, no, no, no, La Barbie was, he was, he was, he was, yeah, but he wasn't at, well, I wasn't there when he was there. And Barbie wasn't, and Barby wasn't, he wasn't, no, I was at the medium and the low. This, he was at, uh, Barbie was like a cartel member. He was high up. He wasn't a Zeta.

These are like the killers, the guys that they sent out. The Citrios. Yeah, this was a kid, though. He was a kid when he started, like, he was like 15, 16. in Mexico, had been doing it for years, and then he got caught when he was, whatever, 18 or 19, and he was now in the system cooperating, but he was at Coleman Lowe. Pete, my buddy Pete, knew him, but you could not find him in the BOP system. Like, if you try to look him up, you could not find him.

Nobody knew where he was. And at some point, he was there for like six months or a year, and then one day, boom, he just disappeared. And you couldn't find out where he went. Okay, yeah. Because they're kind of moving him around. I know where he went. Because, you know what I'm saying? They're moving him around.

But the facility you're talking about is not, those aren't facilities that are designed to do eight years in. Eventually, they had to send you somewhere, right? Well, I mean, some people that are there spend their entire life there. Oh, okay. Well, how big of a facility is this? It's this. It's, I have to be careful about this. I can't really speak too much about it.

but they're, they're, this is a prison? Yeah, it's part of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Okay. And it is a, you know,

it has a yard. It has, it's like a unit, just like, it's basically just a unit. Right. That's all it is. It has enough people

where it would amount to the type of unit that you were a part of at Coleman. Right. But it's just one unit. And that's the amount of. So it's between 140 and 180 people. I can say that it

was less than that. You know, we had a, we had a yard. Camps are a few hundred, typically a couple hundred people. We had a, yeah, we had a yard, we had commissary, we had everything the same way that the Bureau of Prison says, I was a Bureau of Prisons inmate. I just, I was at a location that was not disclosed. And, you know, you wouldn't be able to find me the same way on the federal inmate locator.

When I entered the prison system, I ended up in a protective custody unit that I spoke of. It was an undisclosed location, and I was in that program for two and a half years. My cooperation on that case was never needed. And in the end, I was told that I was not needed, and my exposure on that case was no longer required. And so they gave me the option of staying, and I left. So I spent... Staying what, in that unit? Yeah, staying in that unit.

I was able to make the decision if I wanted to stay in the protective custody unit as a protected government witness or go back into general population. I spent seven months in solitary going into that program in the detention center in Philadelphia, in the transfer center in Oklahoma, sell alone, rec alone, solitary, real solitary. and I spent two and a half years in that program in the protected custody unit, then I left, and I spent four and a half months leaving in the solitary confinement cells. And real solitary, not the shoe with the cellie.

Real solitary, alone, cell alone, rec alone. Right. And so I left that, and I entered general population at federal correctional institution but in medium one, which is like a circus for all the high-profile people

that are not protected government witnesses is, you know, and gang dropouts. It's a gang dropout yard. But it's also the flip side, unfortunately, is that you have to live with defenders. And so I lived in a smorgas board of gang dropouts, high-profile inmates, and and I associated myself with the gang dropouts because I could relate to them. You know, they understood me and I understood them. And so I gravitated toward the Hispanics, and I did my time with Hispanics as basically

honorary gang dropout, you know, in those facilities. I did my time there. And I think it's important to note that I was cooperating extensively while I was inside. Before I even went to prison, I was a cooperator. So they knew that I could be utilized. And someone passed along information to the senior investigative agent. at the prison I was going to surrender to, and he contacted me before I was even incarcerated,

and he basically said, hey, when you come in, we're going to tell you the ropes about how you might be able to help. And the goal at that point was to get a Rule 35B, which I think you're familiar with. So I never got it, but I was extensively cooperating while I was incarcerated, and I helped, you know, with small stuff

compared to what I was doing on the street. Yeah, yeah, they're looking for what, like cell phones or who's bringing in drugs or for cigarettes. And, you know, they were looking, yeah, for K2 was a huge issue during my tenure in federal prison. It was a horrible epidemic.

When did you get out? No, I was there for a couple years of that. It was horrible, man. I would just, you just, I think it started. The guys are falling on the ground You start flipping around Did they have a name for it? With you?

We called it gooking out Oh, no, I didn't know this. Just spazzing out. You talk to someone like this And all of a sudden, like, 15 minutes later, they'd be like jumping off the tier Or like drinking toilet water

Just convulsing on the floor Pull off their clothes They think they were on firepulled their clothes And run around the wreckyard With all the cops chasing Some naked guy. Yeah, I've seen that. I mean, I

I No, our listeners have no idea Your listeners, excuse me, have no idea the insanity of what K2 overdoses are like. And it happened all the time. Yeah. And I saw it every day. This isn't once a week.

No, it was all the time. It was every day, all day long. It was just the big ones that got the attention. So I, you know, I was trying to help get rid of that. It was a, it was a horrible thing that was occurring in the prison system. I helped with that. But, you know, my time was spent reading. studying, teaching, and I was productive. I had goals. I wanted to get out and be a husband and a father

and a business owner and a homeowner. I achieved all of those goals. I attained them when I was released. When I was released, I was released on February 4th, 2022, and I had those goals in mind, but I had a lot of trauma. I spent 31 months total in solitary confinement. And that was a lot of time. and it really put things into hyper focus. I don't know if you've spent a lot of time in shoe, but two and a half years of your life is a long time to contemplate what it is that you want in the future. Either, you know, wallow away in sorrow and be defeated,

or you just have the strength and tenacity to continue. But you have to be strong physically, mentally, spiritually, to get through two and a half years of solitary. or else you're just going to fail. You're going to just, you're going to lose it. I saw a lot of people lose it because I spent a lot of time in that environment in the shoe. And when I left prison, I just hit the ground running and I wanted to achieve all the things

that I just mentioned. And I eventually slowly but surely did. And I became a homeowner, 14 months post-release. I became a husband in October of 20. 23. I'm a father now, a beautiful little girl, and I paid off my house, and I started a RV transportation company, and I eventually shifted from that after a catastrophic accident and a horrific spinal injury. I started to become more focused on teaching law enforcement how to be more proactive with informants as I used to be.

I worked with departments and criminal justice programs to explain the dynamic between the handler and the informant and teach handlers how to interact more effectively target and maintain relationships with confidential sources. I bottled that up into a course and I started teaching it, but it wasn't really paying the bills. So I needed to monetize it somehow and I started a publication interviewing former cooperator, and law enforcement that had those relationships. And that's what I'm doing now.

I'm a publisher of a periodical. It's weekly. And we talk to law enforcement about how they interacted with informants. And I sort of point out how they're lacking whatever it is that they need to do in order to have more effective relationships. But what I'm doing when I interview these guys now, these are like the head of the DEA or the number two in charge of the DEA. I've interviewed like 11 DEA guys and intelligence operators, FBI agents, and they tell

me how they interacted with informants, and I tell them how I interacted with handlers, and we put together really interesting publications. It's been really fun. It's really crazy, actually, because I'm talking to these guys. Earlier this week, I talked to the warden of the ADX, and he was really intimidating. but at the end he helped connect me with someone that I did time with and that he governed as the warden. It was really touching to finally have communication with someone that was that high up. And it's been really interesting to be able to have this relationship with law enforcement.

It's strange, it's bizarre, but it is what it is. And it's been very well received in the law enforcement community. You're meeting somebody today. Right. I am meeting someone today in the Hillsborough. County Sheriff's Department. I'm going to talk to him about a seminar that I'll put together. Basically, these guys, you know, when they come on the force, when they're doing law

enforcement work, they don't know. These are clean-cut guys that grew up, you know, in military families and never swore once. They never smoked, you know, a joint. They never, you know, dabbled in anything illegal, and they become a cop. And they, you know, they're following the law. But little do they know that there's another side. to criminality. They can't just relate to criminals. I could point a cop out or a narc out a mile away.

I'm very hypervigilant and I'm aware, but you have to be able to learn in a certain way. Aside from on the job, there's a certain element that I can provide that will help law enforcement understand how to more effectively communicate with a criminal or recruit an informant confidential source. I go around and I teach these guys specifically, you know, how to do that. And it's, you know what it is? It's this conversation right here. Right. I mean, it's not a normal conversation. We're talking about a lot of crazy shit, but we're talking.

We have a rapport. You know, we communicate effectively with one another, and that's how you have to communicate with a person that is, you know, a potential source of information. You got to treat them with. respect, you can't just go into it and be good cop, bad cop. That doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. Right. And it resonates with all the people who have high value targets and confidential sources. They all have the same effective manner of doing that. And that is to attain respect and build rapport. But that is just the, that is what I'm doing now. This is my mission. And it's not just because I'm

trying to be the most prolific snitch in the face of the earth. There's a, there's a problem. in our society. And it starts with death and we're going to call it Fetty. And it is serious. And at its peak in 2022, over 100,000 people you were dying. It's down to like 40 or 50,000 now because they are really targeting it and it is very effective the way that they've dismantled some of the networks. But it is lethal and deadly. Yeah, the Trump administration designated certain cartel organizations as foreign terrorist organizations. And that gave more resources to agencies to more effectively fight the cartels. But there's other elements to it as well. Feddi is crazy. I've known people that have died. I have friends of friends and daughters of friends.

And it's horrible because people don't know that they're doing it. And they might go out on a, you know, have a night. And, you know, they're trying to do E, but they end up doing FETI and they're dead. There's no coming back. And these are just kids. Did you ever see that? There was a video where a law enforcement officer was just searching somebody. And there was like a bag or something.

I don't know what happened. But she ends up poke just like touches her with her finger. And she's like, what is it? And she just seizes up and boom, hits the ground. They have to run and grab Narcan. And I mean, listen, it's talk. We're talking about like, it's like baby powder. Like a little, a sprinkle of, like it was nothing.

It was nothing. She didn't even know what it was. She kind of thought it was like, I don't know what she thought it was powder or something. And she, I don't even know, I don't even think she touched. She just touched it. Well, that's all it takes. I mean, and she just, yeah, all of a sudden she was like, she like, she could just, she started feeling weird. And she's like, oh, wait a minute.

Oh, boom, dropped. Yeah, it was a female officer. Yeah, yeah, it was a female officer. I've seen that footage, yeah. This is a huge problem in our society. And so law enforcement that might not be tactically aware of how to develop. human intelligence through a confidential source or informant, they need all the help that they can get to battle this. That's my mission now is to help law enforcement to more effectively battle this epidemic

that's occurring in our society because it needs, you know, I don't care. I didn't, I grew up in Beverly Hills. I grew up in the affluent enclaves of Los Angeles. I wasn't a criminal. I just became one. And now I'm taking that experience and I'm trying to help and do good and be a productive member of society that way. And that's what my mission is now. I'm the publisher of the human intelligence ledger. It's available on LinkedIn. I'm in the top 1% of content influencers on the LinkedIn platform.

I'm gaining popularity on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok. They all have the same name, the human intelligence ledger. I think that's where I'd go to seek long-form articles, and I'm in post-production for a podcast now, too. I have very interesting guests. It's mostly law enforcement and former cooperators. Big names in the former cooperation world like Margarito Flores, who is Chappo Guzman's distributor in Chicago. He was part of the Flores brother organization that helped take down Chapo. And major law enforcement figures like the man who took down Pablo Escobar, Stephen Murphy, and, you know, the number two at the DEA, some CIA officers.

These are all things that I talk to. I have the publication that interviews these guys and you can find some really interesting stuff just by searching that and it's all available on those different platforms. Hey you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do me a favor? Hit the subscribe button to the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Also

if you go into the description box, we're going to leave all of Ben's links so you can go to his website. You can check out his, you're calling a periodical, but it looks like a magazine like a, like a... It's like an online publication. It's an online publication. For an online publication, it'll be a the link will be in the description box. You just go there, click there, shoot over.

And we'll also put, we're going to put the LinkedIn and all of his other social medias. So thank you very much. Also, if you want to be a guest, we're going to put our website. You can go there, go to Be a Guest page, and you can leave a video and fill out an application. We'll get back with you. Thank you very much.

See you.